An Assessment of Flood Risk Factors in Riverine Cities of Turkey: Lessons for Resilience and Urban Planning

2016-01-01
Şenol Balaban, Meltem
Show full item record
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
540
views
440
downloads
Turkey's river flood protection system is based on surveys and assessments of a central authority as well as its limited powers of intervention. The local governments, which are the closest units of public administration to flood risk areas, are under various pressures for development. However, it is crucial to integrate flood risk mitigation efforts with local planning system and involve local governments in all stages of risk management starting from estimations of risks and determination of risk areas, as the contemporary international approaches point out. This paper was based on a sample survey of four case cities; namely Bartin, Batman, Aydin and Hatay. It aims to evaluate the main factors that contribute to the risk of flooding in riverine cities in Turkey, as well as to take some lessons for improving existing system.Research findings indicate that river floods usually turn into destructive disasters in Turkish cities mainly due to improper land-use planning and management. Ad hoc and discrete land use development within and through the river basins results in serious and chronic flood losses. At the same time, the loose relationship between urban planning and flood risk management is another factor observed. Currently, urban development plans are not equipped with necessary measures to mitigate flood risks. More to the point, the illusory feeling of safety that originates from independent and discrete efforts of mitigation adds to flood vulnerabilities of city residents.
Architecture, Flood risk management, Resilience, Urban planning, Bartın, Batman, Aydın, Hatay
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/48597
http://jfa.arch.metu.edu.tr/archive/0258-5316/articles/metujfa2016203.pdf
Department of City and Regional Planning, Article

Suggestions

An Evaluation of roles, coordination and cooperation of local governments in disaster risk management policy in Turkey
Çalışkan, İdil; Başbuğ Erkan, Berna Burçak; Ersoy, Melih; Department of Earthquake Studies (2014)
This study examines the authority of local administrations in need of local-level preparedness, community participation and training to have efficient and sustainable disaster risk reduction (DRR) and disaster risk management (DRM) in Turkey. The enduring debates between the local authorities and central government in Turkey, history of regulations for disasters and local governments involving the discussion regarding the recently published local government law; national and international DRM improvements a...
A RISK-BASED MONITORING AND CONTROL STRATEGY FOR MICROPOLLUTANTS IN A RIVER BASIN
Pilevneli, Tolga; Yetiş, Ülkü; Department of Environmental Engineering (2022-8-15)
There is a need to develop a methodology for cost-effectively assessing and monitoring the quality of surface waters, and controlling micropollutant discharges from point sources in a river basin. This study aims to develop a monitoring and control strategy by prioritizing micropollutants according to their potential hazard and exposure levels in the Yeşilırmak River Basin (YRB). The temporal and spatial variation in the occurrence of 295 micropollutants was assessed by adopting a statistical screening app...
An evaluation of local policies and actions that address climate change in Turkish metropolitan cities
Gedikli, Bahar; Balaban, Osman (2018-01-01)
As sites of climatic impacts, cities have become key players in climate policy-making in order to reduce GHG emissions and vulnerabilities of settlements. They started taking actions in various fields such as built environment, water and waste management, transportation and urban greenery. However, the involvement of cities in climate policy-making varies over countries and regions; the extent of involvement differentiates even among the cities of the same country. This paper focuses on the Turkish case and...
ANALYZING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DISASTER RISK MITIGATION AND URBAN PLANNING PROCESSES: THE CASE STUDY OF ESKISEHIR CITY
Sert Özkiremitçi, Merve; Balaban, Osman; Department of City and Regional Planning (2022-5-11)
The aim of this study is to discuss the effectiveness and efficiency of urban planning in reducing the risk of natural disasters in cities and to analyse the relationship between planning and disaster mitigation processes. The study focuses particularly on the analysis of Eskişehir case with reference to data and information on disaster risk analysis, existing urban development plans as well as the plan implementation processes. After the 1999 Gölcük and Düzce Earthquakes, Eskişehir has also faced and to a ...
A study on physical resilience of urban transformation implementations in Turkey under the law numbered 6306
Üstüncan, Umutcan; Şenol Balaban, Meltem; Department of Earthquake Studies (2021-12-10)
The physical development that ignores the unique dangers of Turkey in the process of urbanization and subsequent urban transformation which has created today’s settlements consisting of large risk pools. This is due to disasters with great loss, especially earthquakes; the intervention of a non-market hand, in other words, the intervention of the state was inevitable. This intervention was aimed to be done with the Law Numbered 6306 published in the Official Gazette on May 31, 2012. The law was enacted with...
Citation Formats
M. Şenol Balaban, “An Assessment of Flood Risk Factors in Riverine Cities of Turkey: Lessons for Resilience and Urban Planning,” ODTÜ Mimarlık Fakültesi Dergisi, vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 45–71, 2016, Accessed: 00, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://hdl.handle.net/11511/48597.
METU IIS - Integrated Information Service open@metu.edu.tr